This is what it means when political journalists say they’ve been talking to a ‘source’

While arguments about Brexit have dominated political life this week, there’s also been a smaller – but related – argument swirling around Westminster about the way in which the media reports events.

What it boils down to is the use of quotes from unnamed spokespeople and sources, and a subtle change in the way these channels have been used since the arrival of Boris Johnson and his adviser Dominic Cummings in office.

Let me make clear from the start that I believe there is most definitely a place for the anonymous quote in political reporting.

It is always nice, of course, to put ministers on the spot and force them to state for the record precisely where they stand on an issue. TV and radio clips and interviews in the print media perform a vital function in making sure our elected representatives spell out their plans in public, so they can be challenged and held to account.

But it is also an essential service to readers for political correspondents to find out what is going on beneath the radar, to seek out insights on what politicians are planning and how events might develop, and sometimes that can only be achieved by granting them the cloak of anonymity.

Any Westminster reporter soon discovers that the most slavish reciter of the authorised “line to take” can become a fount of unexpected information once they have gone off the record. It would seem to me a great loss to deny readers access to this material through a purist insistence on naming sources.

Equally, I am among the cohort of correspondents who would resist televising the twice-daily lobby briefings held by the prime minister’s official spokesperson in a Hogwarts-style turret on the roof of parliament.

Only the other day, I was talking to one of my anonymous government sources, who asked “Why do we still have the lobby? We’re in the digital age and we’re behaving as if its the 1970s.”

TV increases transparency, is the argument, and it’s true that allowing the cameras in would produce a steady stream of clips setting out the official government line.

But it would also mean grandstanding questions, rote replies and the loss of the ability to keep niggling away at an issue until an answer is forthcoming. On the TV, it’s relatively easy to move on to the next questioner or draw proceedings to a halt. In the lobby room, the grilling carries on until reporters are satisfied they can get no more from it.

The big current issue is the use of anonymous quotes from advisers and aides who do not have an official role as spokespeople but are clearly peddling a line which the government wants to place in the public arena without having to take responsibility for it.

One example that raised hackles was the report that Downing Street was launching an inquiry into Remain-backing MPs supposedly “colluding” with foreigners. To most eyes, the suggestion appeared ludicrous, as it was difficult to see what powers the government possesses to carry out such a probe, or what misdemeanour a British MP talking with a French or German politician could possibly have committed.

Indeed, there has been no sight since of any inquiry of this kind and Dominic Grieve – the MP most obviously targeted – has made clear that he has nothing to hide.

But the anonymous source may well feel that his job has been done. The idea is out there and some readers will remember the allegation, but not the fact that it came to nothing. And crucially, the source himself cannot be held to account.

The problem is heightened by social media, with correspondents able to put out on Twitter the latest titbits they have gleaned, stripped of the context which would surround them in the fuller reports they later file.

In the end, the best remedy to these new problems are the same old journalistic methods that have always held true. It’s fine to tell your readers about the lines that parties are pushing and the mud they are flinging, but always make clear why they are saying it, what they are hoping to gain and why there might be more to a story than what the anonymous source suggests.

Yours,

Andrew Woodcock

Political editor